Sawa Sawa Positive Prevention

This training material is one of two materials produced for Sawa Sawa, an HIV programme implemented by the Health Communication Capacity Collaborative (HC3) in the Sofala Province of Mozambique. The program ran from January 2017 – December 2017, and sought to reduce stigma in communities in order to improve health seeking behaviors for HIV services, particularly among men.

The program ran Positive Prevention groups for people living with HIV (PLHIV), which were designed to teach clients about the difference between CD4 and viral load and the importance of viral suppression, as well as provide a supporting environment for PLHIV.

In addition, the program led community dialogues which are described in Sawa Sawa: A Community Dialogue Manual to Reduce Stigma.

The goals of the Sawa Sawa Positive Prevention training are for the participants to:

• Be acquainted with the Sawa Sawa Positive Prevention tool and its objectives
• Have created an environment where there is confidentiality and all feel welcome
• Reflect on the reasons that cause men to take less care of their own health
• Assess the importance of men taking care of their health

The key messages of the session are:

• It is a man’s responsibility to take care of his own health and the health of his partner.
• It is important for men to seek health services and guide other men to do the same, in order to:
  • Use condoms to avoid transmitting the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) to their partner
  • When having a sign/symptom of a sexually transmitted infection (STI), preventing the disease from getting worse or transmitting it to their partner

Source: PEPFAR, USAID, Johns Hopkins University Center for Communication Programs

Date of Publication: March 25, 2019